The Fletchette Cannon has the coolest effect of all the guns (IMHO, you gotta love the pop-pop=pop sound), but it is rather usless for the longest time. The problem is that very few people have the concentration time-scale to actually make the rapid fire of the Fletch count. (I.e. You have to lock on to the target for a bit longer to make your shots count, since you need to make 2 hits to actually do as damage as a single hit from a Neut3. )

After the rebalance, the Fletch Mk2 actually is a slightly more useful gun. It is still nowhere on par with the Neuts MKIII and gausses though, so nobody uses it. Which is a pity.

I think if the mass is lowered to 400kg, it will actually be very useful as a light ship gun. Maybe (?) increase the damage done to 330-350 per hit. Also, I think this will fill a void between 200-400kg for the Small port energy weapons. At the moment, all small energy weapons are either 100-200kg or 500-800kg.

[EDITED : after Spider's post]
If the Devs want an even more radical redo of the Fletch, I will propose the Fletch to be reconfigured as "Ammo-Based Machine Gun" :

Fletchette Machine Gun
Mass 400kg
Ammo : 500
Velocity : 210 m/s
Damage : 330
Rate : 0.088s
Energy : 11/shot

This will give about 44 secs worth of Ammo, and deals a total of 165000 damage. So if you want to kill a Maud, you have to hit 10% of your shots. Not easy, but it'll be definitely be a lot of fun.

And it will be a much more interesting variation over the usual things.

I am getting a bit bored with Neut MkIII and Gausses, to be honest. Why not put some of the less used guns into play?

[EDITED : After Spider's post, I figured why not we just redo the Fletcheette?)

Please! change only -one- variable at the time.
only change the weight, do not combine a weight-loss and a damage increase, or we risk to upset the fragile balance that is appearing.

Except for that, Yes please. Dropping the weight of this gun would make a fun addon to gameplay. Currently, noone takes flechette's seriously....

Good point Spider. Maybe we can just lower the Fletch Cannons to 400kg. I worry about it being used as a spamming weapon...

But if it has Ammo, then people will not spam it so I have edited my original post to suggest a "new Fletch Machine Gun".

What do you all think?

/me tries to break n3-gauss stranglehold. (ZZZZ)

Ammo based weapons cannot be fast-fire or they cause lag. There has been LOADS of posts about this, basically, Ammo requires more traffic to the server and back, than energy does.

( search back in this forum for more details )

Gatlings used to be ammo-based. For about 5 minutes. Then it was realized that it would take a phenominal amount of work to make an ammo-based rapid-fire weapon work, and that feature was removed.

Hmm.

I've already searched before i post and I can't find anything about this rapid-fire-ammo-lag thing.

Maybe you can suggest and link to a post please?

[EDIT : anyway, forget about it. If it does not work, it does not work. But i like people to think about lowering the mass of the Fletch Cannon. Threads in these forums seem to go our of topic faster than an IBG.]

fletch cannons:

mass: 400kg

with afro: 800kg

rogue: wasn't it also that it greatly lagged a sector?

I figure the flechettes to be the s-port equivalent of the gatlings. I think they need slightly better auto-aim than they currently have, but not to the degree of "good auto-aim." It'll increase hits, but its low damage balances that out.

Goodness, no, please don't make this into a Small port Gatling cannon by adding "Good autoaim"!

Light fighters can aim well enough without having extra pointing ability.

Good autoaim = Gauss. It's "Excellent autoaim"(?) that's gatling turret.
-:sigma.SB

Solra : Read CP's post carefully : he said "slightly better autoaim", which I interpret as "Good Autoaim" (I think even you would not think of putting excellent autoaim in a small port weapon, given your vast experience.)

Yes.Gauss needs Good Autoaim, because it has a low firing rate. But putting a "Good Autoaim" in a 0.088s rate weapon will be insane.

softy2: read CP's post even more carefully :P

" I think they need slightly better auto-aim than they currently have, but not to the degree of 'good auto-aim.'"

Which I interpret as "not as bad auto-aim as normal auto-aim, but not as good auto-aim than good auto-aim"

^That part was intended to be humorously satirical... not insulting, so I apologize if you take it that way.

Basically, what I meant was this:
Auto-aim: normal energy weapons (hypothetical auto-aim tolerance of 2 degrees)
Slightly better auto-aim: Flechettes (hypothetical auto-aim tolerance of 5 degrees)
Good auto-aim: Gauss (hypothetical auto-aim tolerance of 10 degrees)
Excellent auto-aim: Gatling turret (hypothetical auto-aim tolerance of 20 degrees)

I say hypothetical because I don't know the actual figures, but you get the idea. The auto-aim isn't normal, and it isn't good, it's just slightly better than normal :)

Oh Ok. Now I understand.

But no I disagree with adding even "slightly better" autoaim on an energy weapon, 400kg, flown by light fighters. THey can aim well enough.

I second this idea. Another weapon with a slightly different effect could really make light fighters interesting.

I want to try a good flechette weapon.

do it.

It should be more of a spamming weapon than the gattlings. None of that auto aim stuff. A small damage reduction and higher fire rate would be nifty. Actually, I don't know what needs to be changed, however, it should fill the following niche.

I see it as a pot shot weapon that you spam and if you get a good aim in, fire a stronger weapon. It should also make people think about not getting too close. It should provide cover at long range by making the target think about not moving around too much.

fnugget then you need an ultra low energydrainage.

like <6 a shot

Yes i think energy drain is one of the key problems of the flech

At its rate of fire, if you have more than one the battery barely lasts any time at all - so people use other stuff

Uber low drain would be cool, and maybe a small weight reduction.

will have as a disadvantage a serious strain on your internetconnection with lag as a consequence

Flechette == Gatling Cannon. Not turret.